Richard Dawson Jones and
Mary Ellen Jones
by Grace Minnie Jones (daughter)
Some time after his conversion, Richard began to feel that the Lord wanted him to be a missionary. He felt very burdened about it but at the time he and his fiancée, Mary Ellen Stones, were engaged to be married, and she and her family were not keen on the idea - they were quite a close family and she was the 'baby' of the family! However, after they were married, Richard still felt that God wanted him to be a missionary and felt guilty at the idea of not obeying Him.
Mary resisted the idea until one day, when she was doing some work in the house and thinking on the subject, the thought came into her head: "God gave me this husband, but if I am unwilling to let him do what God is calling him to do, maybe God will take my husband away!" It was a solemn thought, so she prayed for some days that if it really was God's will, He would take away from her that unwillingness to comply. One day she woke up with the realisation that indeed, God had taken away from her all her unwillingness and fear. She told Richard that she was willing to go with him as a missionary if he still felt it was God's will for him. It must have been a great relief for him!
As Richard could speak French very well, they thought they should probably go to Algeria or the Congo, where French is spoken. However, they weren't sure, so they carried on praying for guidance on the matter.
After a while there was a missionary conference at Clumber Hall assembly (in Nottingham, England) with, as usual, a book stall with missionary books on sale. Richard and Mary decided to buy a book each, as a treat to themselves. So each bought a book, Mary's being 'Adventures with the Bible in Brazil' - a book written by a colporteur late in the 19th century called Frederick C Glass.
As she read the book, she felt a great certainty that Brazil was the country God would like them to come to, but she didn't say anything and when they had both finished their books, they exchanged them and each read the other one's book. When Richard had finished the above book, he said to Mary at breakfast the next day: "I feel sure God wants us to go to Brazil"… That, of course, confirmed what Mary had thought, so that was how they decided.
They told the Clumber Hall assembly and after prayer they confirmed their decision. They then informed Mary's family, who were very much against it and actually her father never spoke to her again till she had been in Brazil for two years! It was very hard on her because she was a very loving person. However, they did come round in the end…
They came to Brazil at the end of 1925, and were met by Mr and Mrs Percy Ellis, whom they didn't previously know, but who gave them accommodation in their own home initially then they rented a room for themselves and later stayed at the home of a Christian family to look after it while they were away.
After about 9 months in Rio, the family was coming back to their house, and they decided they knew enough Portuguese to start on their own somewhere else. They considered they ought to go where there was no Gospel witness yet. Looking at a map of Brazil they saw the town of Uberaba and somehow thought that it might be a good place to start. Nobody seemed to know much about it, so after praying they asked the British and Foreign Bible Society in Rio whether they knew anything about it. The person they spoke to at the BFBS told them: "From what we can see in our records, there can't be any work there - it is years since we had any request from there for a Bible!" So that was how they decided to go there.
In those days it was a long and difficult journey by train from Rio to Uberaba, via S. Paulo, and they knew nobody in either place.
In Uberaba they stayed initially in a cheap hotel. On the day after they arrived they decided it was time to start work preaching in the open-air. They went first to the 'delegado de polícia' (sheriff), to see if they needed any official permission. He asked them what they were going to preach - what their 'religion' was, so Richard opened his Bible at Matthew 5 and read him part of the Sermon on the Mount. When he finished, the delegado said: "If that is what you are going to preach, this town certainly needs it – it is a true Babylon!" But, just to be sure, he would consult higher authority in Belo Horizonte (capital of the State of Minas), so he asked them to go back the next day.
Later on that day they were sitting on a seat in a praça (square) and a lady sat by them and started chatting. When she heard they were evangelical missionaries, she said: "This is a very religious town"! Later on, after experience, they discovered that both statements were true.
The next day they returned to the delegado, who had received a positive reply from B.H. - they could have their meetings, so long as they didn't get involved with politics in any way, which of course they never intended doing. So that evening they had their first open-air meeting in a praça, just the two of them. Both had good singing voices, so they started singing and so attracted a little crowd. During the meeting they noticed that there were soldiers at each of the corners of the praça - evidently the delegado wasn't taking any risks, or perhaps it was to defend these strange foreigners in case of any trouble. Anyway, that is how it all started.
Since that day in 1926 there has been a faithful gospel witness in Uberaba, and later in many surrounding towns and districts.
"Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned."
Mark 16:16 (NKJV)